Has anyone tried part 2: Vault of the Galaxy for beta 1? I visited the Ship Brokers, but none of them have ships for sale. Hard to get the starter ship you need from Exsillium's Ship Broker if a ship is not offered for sale. I logged to Multiverse to see if the AncientRaces library was updated, but so far, that does not seem to be the case. It is still dated last year.

I just got my Playership Drones update in progress working in Vault of the Galaxy. I hoped to compare them with ships from the Ship Broker, but the ships are not for sale. On the other hand, it was kind of fun test driving all of the ships (after I cheated reactors on many of them).

Is it me, or is 1.8 considerably more generous when it comes to dropping high-level gear, compared to 1.7? I was routinely finding stuff that exceeded the local content by at least a couple of levels, got two dual Fusionfire howitzers from Omnithor hunter-killers, tons of intact thermo cannons, and found both heavy Iocrym armor and an Iocrym healer for sale in the last couple of systems (sadly, nobody knew how to install the healer). That's in addition to finding large piles of orthosteel nanos, probably around 100 slave coffins (Sung slave camps were everywhere), and lots of intact shields...though, oddly, no intact reactors that I can recall. Oh, and lots of armor repair kits too.

Before buying the Iocrym healer, heavy Iocrym armor, and an unidentified Iocrym fracture cannon, I had >250k rin and >400k credits, which is just absurd amounts of wealth compared to what I'm used to working with.

So does the Ship's Interior//Dock Services screen. The screens just keep getting better and better. The Subdue Artifact screen, the Korolov mission select screen and now the Ship Broker screen all look great.

Some of the items you can sell to dry docks seem a little odd; rice, autons, human organs, Segways. Possibly better if they matched the items you can buy there, ammo, devices, armor repair etc. Although it makes sense that they might buy some food or basic supplies but not platinum ore. They also resell these items.
And I just noticed mining companies will buy food items but not resell them so it might just be a typo in the dry dock code.

Ship broker ship order in Broker screen (what a mouthful!), IMO it would be better if the ship list was sorted by ship type. So have all Sapphire variants listed together followed by all Wolfens together, etc. It's difficult to compare two Sapphires when they are 3 ships apart in the list. This seems to happen in the initial screen but after trading the order gets mixed. Also it would be nice if the cursor returned to the same ship after returning from the "compare with the playership" screen.

Is it just me or does the Minotaur look too small? Is it a proportional thing?

Max cargo expansion of 200 tons in Cent and Cent/X seems excessive.

Also, just seen the "Do you need a hug...?" screen desc. Hilarious!

The "Buy Ship" action in the first ship broker screen might be better renamed "Compare Ships" or "Compare Your Current Ship" then if happy the player can use the "Buy Ship" action in the second screen.

JohnBWatson wrote:
it might be worth adding a few lower - end ships with neat gimmicks (e.g. a cheap IAV that can temporarily boost its speed to escape from threats) to introduce new players to the mechanic.

This idea has merit. If the first time you are ever going to buy a ship it's going to cost you x0,000 credits, you would be right to be a bit hesitant.
If the player has jumped into a cheaper ship previously where the cost difference was only a few thousand credits it would be a more informed decision. A cheap Borer equipped with mining gear is one option. A ship with a Solon shield would be another. If they were equipped to be roughly the same value as the standard playerships then the new player could switch around without any real downside. But the starting playership would need to be available to buy again or you could get stuck in a ship that isn't quite what you need.

Thanks, JBW, for this: "Molotoks retreat on shields down, and that's the key here." Very helpful.

The armor repair item descriptions could do with an update to reflect their repair ability due to the changes. eg "This item repairs up to level n and down to level n, etc.", but a bit more creative perhaps!

PM wrote:
(Eridani seems to have no ships for sale).

This seemed odd to me so I looked into it. For info, the 3 standard playerships aren't available for sale because I don't think they have the "shipBroker" attribute, either in their playership code or any ship class that they inherit. Ships to be brokered need this attribute. See the API 40 Ministry topic.
None of the added playerships will appear in Eridani because dry docks only sell ships with a 'level=' up to two levels higher than the system level. Now I'll explain that better! Because Eridani is a level 1 system the Starton Dry Dock will only sell ships of level 1 to 3 and the added playerships are all level 4 or above so they are not compatible. Rigel is a level 3 system so any ships of level 3 to 5 can appear although (not positive on this) I don't think they all do, only some. These level restrictions are in the station code <Trade> section in the <SellShip> and <BuyShip> blocks. I plan to do a short forum topic explaining these for people who want to add mod ships to the ship brokers.

I do not mind Centurions, at least the X variant, having 200 tons of cargo. Gives them something over earlier ships, and in case of Centurion/X, faster option over Minotaur. I almost consider Minotaur the one playership to rule them all (regarding combat, because that linked-fire gun is a huge upgrade).

I like Buy Ship, especially after I get done with the Ship Broker for Playership Drones. In particular, I have simple ship buying named 'Hire Wingman', which simply buys a ship without trading yours in. (The idea is the wingman gets paid one time with a brand new ship.)

I know there are no low-level ships with shipBroker, and perhaps for good reason. Anything weak enough that could be bought, either you just selected when starting a new game or were too weak or slow that they should not be an option. Normal wingmen are already more powerful that your starter ship, and they do not take downgrades. However, it seems like there could be a few level 3 ships for the shipBroker just so that it is not so empty in Eridani or other level 1 systems.

Similarly, there does not seem to be any ships with shipBroker in VotG, which is why player cannot find ships for sale there. VotG is not very playable in beta 1 without lots of cheating.

Here's a patch for 1.8b1. It overwrites the VOTG playerships, plus any others that were in ship brokers in 1.8a4a, to add the 'shipBroker' attribute to them. From API 40 this attribute is needed for any ship which is to be sold.

Put it in the Extensions folder and select it when starting a VOTG game. You will then get the same ships showing in VOTG ship broker screens as appeared when playing VOTG in 1.8a4a.

Playing many restarts I have noticed shields are not equal. Using a monopole deflector in the arena some games earning the right to be called a gladiator it works great, yet other games in the free for all -the shield is gone in seconds.
Would this be a feature or a bug? lol

Playing many restarts I have noticed shields are not equal. Using a monopole deflector in the arena some games earning the right to be called a gladiator it works great, yet other games in the free for all -the shield is gone in seconds.
Would this be a feature or a bug? lol

It depends on the enemies you're fighting. The monopole is amazing against kinetic weapons, but pretty worthless against lasers.

I've noticed that the Minotaur looks kind of odd when under the effects of Sustain or Defense -- parts of the ship poke outside of the bubble. Does that have any effects on gameplay or is it purely aesthetic?